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The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in December

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in December

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Storyteller-Tools M Harold PageBG blogger M Harold Page had a fabulous month in December, with three of the top four posts for the month, all dealing with Medieval Worldbuilding:

How to Get From Worldbuilding (or Research) to Story
An Adventurer’s Guide to the Middle Ages: What if There’s No Room at the Inn (or No Inn Whatsoever?)
Three Classic Books for Medieval Worldbuilders and Armchair Time Travellers

Mr. Page has clearly fired the imaginations of all the aspiring medieval novelists in our audience (and managed to keep things fascinating for the rest of us.)

The third most popular artcile for December was a guest post from editor Dominik Parisien, announcing the contents of his upcoming Clockwork Canada anthology. Rounding out the Top 5 was the second installment in William I. Lengeman III’s Star Trek movie rewatch, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Also on our top ten were two articles on collecting pulp art by Doug Ellis, the newest installment of our vintage paperback series, Collecting Robert E. Heinlein, Sean Stiennon’s review of Robert McCammon’s Swan Song, and Sarah Newton’s detailed review of the new Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls role playing game.

The complete list of Top Articles for December follows. Below that, I’ve also broken out the most popular overall articles and blog categories for the month.

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New Treasures: Mind Magic by Eileen Wilks

New Treasures: Mind Magic by Eileen Wilks

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Mind Magic-smallThe first book in the World of the Lupi series, Tempting Danger, was published in October, 2004. It was Wilks’ debut novel, and it launched a bestselling series that has vaulted her to the forefront of the urban fantasy genre. The latest volume, Mind Magic, is the 12th in the series (not including the various novellas and short stories she’s produced over the last decade), and it sees FBI agent Lily Yu temporarily benched after the dangerous lessons in mindspeech she’s received from the black dragon.

FBI agent Lily Yu’s mind is a dangerous place to be in the latest Novel of the Lupi…

Thanks to the mindspeech lessons she’s receiving from the black dragon, Lily is temporarily benched from Unit Twelve — until her brain acclimates and the risk of total burnout passes. At least she has her new husband, lupi Rule Turner, to keep her occupied.

But when her mentor calls in a favor and sends Lily to a murder scene, she’s suddenly back on active status — despite the hallucinations she can’t keep at bay. With one touch, Lily knows the man was killed by magic, but her senses don’t warn her how far the conspiracy goes…

A shadowy force within the government wants to take Unit Twelve down, and they don’t mind killing to achieve their goal. With none of her usual resources, Lily is up against impossible odds — because with her mind in disarray, she can’t trust anything she sees.

Mind Magic was published by Berkley on November 3, 2015. It is 416 pages, priced at $7.99 for both the digital and print editions.

Future Treasures: Winterwood by Jacey Bedford

Future Treasures: Winterwood by Jacey Bedford

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Winterwood Jacey Bedford-smallJacey Bedford is the author of the Psi-Tech novels (Empire of Dust, Crossways), both published by DAW. Her new Rowankind fantasy series kicks off with Winterwood, the tale of a crossdressing pirate captain and unregistered witch who’s haunted by the ghost of her husband, and who inherits a magical box from her mother… and is tasked with righting an ancient wrong.

It’s 1800. Mad King George is on the British throne, and Bonaparte is hammering at the door. Magic is strictly controlled by the Mysterium, but despite severe penalties, not all magic users have registered.

Ross Tremayne, widowed, cross-dressing privateer captain and unregistered witch, likes her life on the high seas, accompanied by a boatload of swashbuckling pirates and the possessive ghost of her late husband, Will. When she pays a bitter deathbed visit to her long-estranged mother she inherits a half brother she didn’t know about and a task she doesn’t want: open the magical winterwood box and right an ancient wrong — if she can.

Enter Corwen. He’s handsome, sexy, clever, and capable, and Ross doesn’t really like him; neither does Will’s ghost. Can he be trusted? Whose side is he on?

Unable to chart a course to her future until she’s unraveled the mysteries of the past, she has to evade a ruthless government agent who fights magic with darker magic, torture, and murder; and brave the hitherto hidden Fae. Only then can she hope to open the magical winterwood box and right her ancestor’s wrongdoing. Unfortunately, success may prove fatal to both Ross and her new brother, and desastrous for the country. By righting a wrong, is Ross going to unleash a terrible evil? Is her enemy the real hero and Ross the villain?

Winterwood will be published by DAW on February 2, 2016. It is 432 pages, priced at $7.99 for both the print and digital editions.

Grimdark Magazine 6 Now Available

Grimdark Magazine 6 Now Available

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GrimDark Magazine 6-smallThe latest issue of Grimdark, the quarterly magazine of dark fantasy, has brand new fiction from a quartet of hot new fantasy writers — including a Manifest Delusions tale by Michael R. Fletcher (set in the world of his novel Beyond Redemption), and a Vault of Heaven story by Peter Orullian (set in the world of Trial of Intentions). The issue also has fiction by T. R. Napper, and an excerpt from Mitchell Hogan’s novel Blood of Innocents.

The latest issue went on sale January 13. Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

Short Stories

“At the Walls of Sinnlos” by Michael R. Fletcher
“A Fair Man” by Peter Orullian
“Twelve Minutes to Vinh Quang” by T. R. Napper

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The Books of David G. Hartwell: The Masterpieces of Fantasy

The Books of David G. Hartwell: The Masterpieces of Fantasy

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Masterpieces of Fantasy and Enchantment-small Masterpieces of Fantasy and Wonder-small

David G. Hartwell passed away on January 20th. He was not a fiction writer, but he was nonetheless one of the most respected and influential figures in the industry. He was a senior editor at many of the genre’s most important publishers, including Pocket, Arbor House, Avon/Morrow, and Tor Books, where he edited thousands of books (yes, thousands). He edited The New York Review of Science Fiction for nearly 30 years, and was nominated for the Hugo Award 41 times.

But for me his most enduring contributions to the field will always be his delightful anthologies, of which he produced many. David had a habit of editing sprawling, ambitious books which gave readers new insights into the field. Two of his earliest, released in 1988 and 1989, and co-edited with his future wife Kathryn Cramer, were Masterpieces of Fantasy and Enchantment and Masterpieces of Fantasy and Wonder.

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C.S.E. Cooney’s Novella “The Bone Swans of Amandale” Available Free Online

C.S.E. Cooney’s Novella “The Bone Swans of Amandale” Available Free Online

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Bone Swans CSE Cooney-smallC.S.E. Cooney’s 2015 novella “The Bone Swans of Amandale,” from her acclaimed collection Bone Swans, has been made available free online by the publisher, Mike Allen at Mythic Delirium Books. Here’s what Paul Di Filippo said about the story in his Locus Online review:

Original to this volume, “The Bone Swans of Amandale” reads as if Patricia McKillip and Laird Barron decided jointly to rework the Redwall series. In a land where, among other wonders, a Fairy Mound rises “smooth as a bullfrog,” Maurice the Rat Man must come to the aid of the last Swan Princess, Dora Rose, whom he hopelessly loves and who has seen all her kindred slain, their precious bones turned into musical instruments by the evil ogre Mayor of Amandale, Ulia Gol, whose “florid face was as putridly pink as her wig.” With the help of Nicolas the Pied Piper, suitable reparations are exacted. To say this lively tale recaps its famous model legend is also to say that the Coen Bros.’s O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a straight-ahead rendition of the Labors of Hercules.

Our previous coverage of Bone Swans includes:

Locus Online on C.S.E. Cooney’s Bone Swans
C.S.E. Cooney Gets a Starred Review from Publisher’s Weekly
New Treasures: Bone Swans
Bird People, Evil Clowns, and the Crooked One: Bone Swans by C.S.E. Cooney

Read the complete story online for free here.

New Treasures: The Deep Sea Diver’s Syndrome by Serge Brussolo

New Treasures: The Deep Sea Diver’s Syndrome by Serge Brussolo

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The Deep Sea Divers Syndrome-smallScience fiction can be as strange and imaginative as the best of fantasy… and that certainly seems to be the case with this slender little neo-noir thriller from French writer Serge Brussolo. While he’s published multiple bestsellers in France, this is his first novel to be translated into English. Check it out.

In The Deep Sea Diver’s Syndrome, lucid dreamers called mediums dive into their dreams to retrieve ectoplasms — sticky blobs with curiously soothing properties that are the only form of art in the world. The more elaborate the dream, the better the ectoplasm.

David Sarella is a medium whose dream identity is a professional thief. With his beautiful accomplice Nadia, he breaks into jewelry stores and museums, lifts precious diamonds, and when he wakes, the loot turns into ectoplasms to be sold and displayed.

Only the dives require an extraordinary amount of physical effort, and as David ages, they become more difficult. His dream world — or is it the real world? — grows unstable. Any dive could be his last, forever tearing him away from Nadia and their high-octane, Bond-like adventures.

David decides to go down one final time, in the deepest, most extravagant dive ever attempted. But midway through, he begins to lose control, and the figures in the massive painting he’s trying to steal suddenly come to life… and start shooting.

The Deep Sea Diver’s Syndrome was translated by Edward Gauvin and published by Melville House on January 19, 2016. It is 196 pages, priced at $24.95 in hardcover and $13.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by Christopher King.

Future Treasures: Superhero Universe: Tesseracts Nineteen edited by Claude Lalumiere and Mark Shainblum

Future Treasures: Superhero Universe: Tesseracts Nineteen edited by Claude Lalumiere and Mark Shainblum

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Superhero Universe Tesseracts Nineteen-smallMark Shainblum has been a friend of mine ever since I wrote him a fan letter after reading New Triumph #1 in 1984, featuring the Canadian superhero Northguard he created with Gabriel Morrissette. And Claude Lalumiere was Black Gate‘s first comics editor, with a lengthy column in every one of our early issues. Together, the two have teamed up to edit the nineteenth volume of Tesseracts, the prestigious and long running Canadian anthology series. The theme this volume is superheroes, in all their fascinating combinations.

Superheroes! Supervillains! Superpowered antiheroes! Mad scientists!

Adventurers into the unknown. Detectives of the dark night. Costumed crimefighters. Steampunk armored avengers. Brave and bold supergroups. Crusading aliens in a strange land. Secret histories. Pulp action.

Tesseracts Nineteen features all of these permutations of the superhero genre and many others besides! Featuring stories by: Patrick T. Goddard, D.K. Latta, Alex C. Renwick, Mary Pletsch & Dylan Blacquiere, Geoff Hart, Marcelle Dube, Kevin Cockle, John Bell, Evelyn Deshane, A.C. Wise, Jennifer Rahn, Bevan Thoma, Bernard E. Mireault, Sacha A. Howells, Kim Goldberg, Luke Murphy, Corey Redekop, Brent Nichols, Jason Sharp, Arun Jiwa, Chadwick Ginther, Leigh Wallace, David Perlmutter, P.E. Bolivar, Michael Matheson.

The Tesseracts anthology series is Canada’s longest running anthology. It was first edited by the late Judith Merril in 1985, and has published more than 529 original Canadian speculative fiction (Science fiction, fantasy and horror) stories and poems by 315 Canadian authors, editors, translators and special guests. Some of Canada’s best known writers have been published within the pages of these volumes ― including Margaret Atwood, William Gibson, Robert J. Sawyer, and Spider Robinson (to name a few).

Superhero Universe: Tesseracts Nineteen will be published by EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing on April 15, 2016. It is 200 pages, priced at $15.95 in trade paperback. But the digital version will be available next week, and is priced at only $5.99. The cover is by Jason Loo.

January GigaNotoSaurus Features “Godfall” by Sandra M. Odell

January GigaNotoSaurus Features “Godfall” by Sandra M. Odell

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giganotosaurus logo-smallOver at GigaNotoSaurus, editor Rashida J. Smith surveys every single story they published last year, which is awfully handy for latecomers like me who’ve just started following this fabulous magazine.

2015 concluded my second year as editor (officially my first full year of choosing stories) and looking at the stories that did make the cut it’s easier to see themes emerge.

In “Serving Girl,” “The Business of Buying and Selling,” “Blow the Moon Out,” and “Quarter Days,” relationships play an important role in navigating the strange new worlds the protagonists find themselves in.

“The Stars, Their Faces Uplifted in Song” and “And the Ends of the Earth for Thy Possession,” tackle the complexity of faith in distant futures and alternate worlds.

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The Tor.com Novellas are Now Available in Bargain Bundles

The Tor.com Novellas are Now Available in Bargain Bundles

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Torcom September Novellas

I’ve been thrilled to see so many exciting new novellas come out of Tor.com‘s new publishing program, by so many top names in fantasy and SF. Each novella is priced at $2.99 (or $12.99 for the print versions.) Now Tor.com has announced that you can buy discounted bundles of all their novellas published in 2015.

Tor.com Bundle #1 contains all four novellas originally published in September 2015, and is priced at $8.99.

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson
Witches of Lychford by Paul Cornell
Sunset Mantle by Alter S. Reiss
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

It was published on January 12th, and is currently available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

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